Template:Infobox CharacterLiam Kissane, also known as Gunman or Big Ears, is a member of the Coalition of Minnows team.
History
Early History
Liam Kissane, much like his older sister Zoe, joined the Army Ranger Wing of Ireland's Defence Forces (the Sciathan Fhianoglach an Arim), where he earned his official call-sign Gunman. During his time in the forces, Gunman became a specialist in bomb disposal, hostage rescue and heavy weapons.
During late 1995, Gunman trained with the Commander-in-Chief's In Extremis Force under Marshall Judah at Coronado for a brief period.
Before Seven Ancient Wonders
In 1996, Gunman and Zoe were among Ireland's representatives in a meeting of small nations to discuss uniting to restore the Golden Capstone in order to avert the destruction threatened by the Tartarus sunspot. Once Ireland agreed to the multi-national mission, they assigned both Gunman and Zoe to help guard Lily until she was old enough to begin translating the clues leading to the hiding places within the seven Ancient Wonders.
Over the next several years spent raising Lily at the team's base in Kenya, Lily and Gunman bonded (which Zoe would joke about it being because they were of similar intelligence levels) playing games regularly, including Splinter Cell in dual player mode. On one occasion he played pretend tea party with her, and though the other team members saw this, they decided to never made fun of him about it, as they considering his close relationship with Lily off-limits to teasing. However, when the two once broke into Saladin's workshop and used some of his explosives to blow up Lily's dollhouse, which Gunman was reprimanded for since Lily could have been hurt. Eventually Lily rechristened Gunman's call-sign as Big Ears.
When Lily turned ten, she managed to decipher the first part of the Callimachus text, and soon afterwards Jack West Jr led Big Ears and the rest of the team to the Sudan to locate the Colossus of Rhodes Piece.
Seven Ancient Wonders
As the team made their way into the ancient mine, Big Ears helped to carry Lily through most of the trap-laden mine, and also helped to keep her from seeing some horrific sights. Once the team entered the cavern and initiated the Warblers, Big Ears and the others moved to make their way through the Master Snare trap, and once Jack and Lily retrieved the Piece, the Irish commando carried Lily and the Piece as they began their retreat. Big Ears was hit in the shoulder-blade by a crossbow arrow, accidentally dropping Lily into the crocodile-filled water but luckily Jack managed to save her. Unfortunately, once they made it back outside, the team was surrounded by Cal Kallis and his men, and Big Ears reluctantly handed over the Piece after Kallis put a gun to Zoe's head, but luckily the team still managed to escape on the Halicarnassus.
As the team prepared their next move, Big Ear's shoulder was seen to by Zoe, and fortunately all it took for the Irish soldier to get ready for the next mission to recover the Alexandria Lighthouse Piece from Hamilcar's Refuge was a cocktail of pain-killers. Once Jack located the concealed inlet covering the Refuge, the rest of the team were dropped off to join him, and Big Ears noted Tunisia had been used to film some Star Wars scenes. After racing Kallis and Judah's teams through the trap systems to the Refuge, Big Ears and the others were ultimately outmatched by the CIEF and forced to abandon the Refuge.
In the wake of their failures, Jack called a team meeting to discuss the difficulties they were having with the clues for the Statue of Zeus and Temple of Artemis Pieces. Big Ears was shocked when Wizard revealed that the long-thought gone Cult of Amun Ra was in fact the Catholic Church, and he protested that it was a good conspiracy theory, however Wizard offered enough evidence to convince him. Soon, Jack reluctantly decided they needed to liberate Mustapha Zaeed, an expert on the Capstone, from Guantanamo Bay to help them identify the location of the Zeus Piece, and during the attack Big Ears helped man the plane's turrets and fired rubber bullets at the defending Marines to distract them while Jack and Zoe retrieved the terrorist.
Once Zaeed revealed the Zeus Piece was kept unknowingly in the Louvre, Big Ears listened to Jack, Epper and Zoe's discussion about the diversity between the Freemasons and Catholics and their current forms of worship compared to ancient times such as the construction of obelisks, however most of it went over his head.
Big Ears was a part of the team that deployed to Paris to retrieve the Zeus Piece, and he and Jack disguised themselves in workers overalls before they and Lily moved to the Winged Victory of Samothrace statue. Big Ears kept tourists away with his intimidating glares while Jack broke the Capstone Piece out of the statue's pedestal, and once they had it they began making their escape through the streets of Paris with Pooh Bear and Stretch's help, and finally managed to get away with the Piece.
Later, after they had landed back at Victoria Station, Big Ears followed the eager Lily as she ran towards Dorris to share the news, but was surprised when Lily stopped at something Dorris said and claimed they were in trouble. Indeed, once they began running back to the Halicarnassus, the CIEF suddenly breached the hanger and opened fire on them. Big Ears managed to get Lily and himself to the cover of a nearby generator, but they were cut off from the air-stairs. Knowing that Lily had to be able to escape, Big Ears bade her an emotional farewell, telling her she was the best friend he'd ever had, to fulfill her destiny and always remember him.
With that, Big Ears broke cover and shielded Lily with his own body as he made his dash for the air-stairs, closing most of the distance before he was gunned down. Lily cried by his side once the Americans ceased firing, but luckily Big Ear's move gave Stretch and Pooh Bear the chance to retrieve Lily and get her onto the Halicarnassus, which took off soon afterwards. What nobody would realise was that Big Ears was still barely alive, and that when Kallis had moved in on his body, he had coldly shot him in the head to finish him off.
During the confrontation on the Great Pyramid of Giza, Kallis gloated of killing Big Ears to kill Jack, and moments later Jack avenged his friend by punching his metal fist through Kallis's nose and letting him drop over the side of the platform and be diced up by a crashed chopper's rotor blades. In the aftermath, Zoe was informed of her brother's death, and Lily did her best to comfort her.
Personality
Though nowhere near as smart as his sister Zoe, he is a kind and honest soldier, with a growing doubt about his religion (Cathlic). He and Lily get on really well, joking stated by some that it is due to their similar intelligence levels, and apparently would even step in front of a freight train to save her.
Trivia
- Big Ears is the second character in Reilly's novels to also have the call-sign Gunman, the first was Michael Grier.
- He is noted to be a fan of Dan Brown novels such as The Da Vinci Code and the Star Wars films.